0:00:00 > 0:00:03I've always felt like an outsider.
0:00:03 > 0:00:08And I'm drawn to outsiders, or people who find different paths,
0:00:08 > 0:00:10people who break the rules.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13Turner was an outsider, a maverick.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17He turned the art world upside down.
0:00:17 > 0:00:18He liberated it, even.
0:00:19 > 0:00:25They are calling this show Late Turner - Painting Set Free.
0:00:26 > 0:00:32This is me, Benjamin Zephaniah and this is my private view of Turner.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45I had heard the name Turner when I was a kid.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49But I thought he was one of those kind of dead white
0:00:49 > 0:00:54British artists that really don't say anything to me.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58And then I remember when I was a young Rastafarian,
0:00:58 > 0:01:01I was really angry at the world, and this friend said,
0:01:01 > 0:01:04"You have got to check out this painting by Turner."
0:01:04 > 0:01:07It's a slave ship off the coast of Jamaica.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10Probably not far from where my family come from.
0:01:10 > 0:01:17The captain has worked out that it is more financially rewarding
0:01:17 > 0:01:23if he throws the live slaves into the sea rather than landing with them.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27But it's not in this exhibition. It's not here!
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Fortunately, it's in the catalogue. So I can look at it now.
0:01:31 > 0:01:36But you can see the bodies of these Africans
0:01:36 > 0:01:38and they are drowning
0:01:38 > 0:01:39in their chains.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44But actually, what really strikes me is the amount of blood.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47It seems that there is blood in the sky.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50I mean, it is kind of almost impossible for us to imagine.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Turner wrote a poem. There is a bit here which I will read from it.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01"Aloft all hands, strike the topmast and belay
0:02:01 > 0:02:04"Yon angry setting sun And fierce-edged clouds
0:02:04 > 0:02:08"Declare the Typhoon is coming
0:02:08 > 0:02:12"Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
0:02:12 > 0:02:16"The dead and dying, ne'er heed their chains
0:02:16 > 0:02:20"Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope -
0:02:20 > 0:02:23"Where is thy market now?"
0:02:25 > 0:02:30It's...probably the one that's most connected to me, personally.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35So...thank you, Mr Turner.
0:02:55 > 0:02:56Fire!
0:02:59 > 0:03:01So here we have it.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04I mean, it's amazing.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08Yeah. When I see paintings like this, I think...
0:03:10 > 0:03:12"What would Turner be doing now?"
0:03:12 > 0:03:13If you think about the riots
0:03:13 > 0:03:15that happened in our streets not so long ago,
0:03:15 > 0:03:17he probably would have come out,
0:03:17 > 0:03:22he probably would have borne witness to it and painted it.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24Sat there with his brush and painted it.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28He was a chronicler, if you like.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32He liked to bear witness.
0:03:32 > 0:03:37This is a terrible, dreadful moment.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39But you also have
0:03:39 > 0:03:43a lot of...detail.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47One wonders, these people who were watching from the sidelines,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50some of them are looking towards the fire, but there are a couple here
0:03:50 > 0:03:54that are looking towards us as if saying, "Come and have a look!"
0:03:57 > 0:04:02But this is, to me, this is a little bit revolutionary.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06To see the Houses of Parliament burning down and then you come
0:04:06 > 0:04:07and paint it, I mean...
0:04:09 > 0:04:12# Babylon is burning Babylon is burning
0:04:12 > 0:04:13# With anxiety... #
0:04:16 > 0:04:18Burn, Babylon, burn.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22It's like the system is being burnt.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25But what do we replace it with?
0:04:26 > 0:04:27Another system.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31I am seasick!
0:04:31 > 0:04:33Wow! This is...
0:04:33 > 0:04:35This is all over the place.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39It is obviously a ship in a storm, but...
0:04:40 > 0:04:42I just can't tell which way the wind is blowing,
0:04:42 > 0:04:45it is just all over the place. It's, er...
0:04:45 > 0:04:51It's kind of crazy, but it's very, very beautifully crazy.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54I kind of think that he just carries on, if you take the frame away,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56it will just carry on all over the place.
0:04:57 > 0:05:02From what I understand, at this time, paintings were precise.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05You knew what they were. There was a kind of standard.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09Turner kind of throws this all upside down.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12He has looked at all his contemporaries, all the artists
0:05:12 > 0:05:14around at the time and said, "I won't do what you do.
0:05:14 > 0:05:15"I want to do what I do.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19"I want to do what's in my head and never mind the rule book.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22"You come along and you move forward and be true to yourself."
0:05:25 > 0:05:26This is true.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35I have family in Jamaica who work on the sea and they have told me
0:05:35 > 0:05:37they have been in storms sometimes.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39They say they don't know what hit them,
0:05:39 > 0:05:41they looked up and there wasn't sky
0:05:41 > 0:05:43because they were upside down, and all that kind of stuff.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46So, it's a world that I don't know...
0:05:49 > 0:05:52It's a world that I fear.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55And maybe that's because...I can't swim!
0:05:55 > 0:05:59Turner tells a story that he was actually tied to this mast
0:05:59 > 0:06:01as the storm was raging about him.
0:06:01 > 0:06:02Now most people don't believe that -
0:06:02 > 0:06:05apparently people have checked his diary, his appointments.
0:06:05 > 0:06:07He is probably having a meeting with his agent.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10He wasn't there. But that's not the point, actually.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14I guess, like a poet or writer, your job is to use your imagination,
0:06:14 > 0:06:16to take your imagination there.
0:06:18 > 0:06:19Turner might not be there,
0:06:19 > 0:06:22but his imagination is right up there.
0:06:34 > 0:06:35Ah...
0:06:37 > 0:06:38Regulus.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43Now, this is interesting because this is one of those paintings
0:06:43 > 0:06:47I have seen in books. I saw it in a catalogue.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52But to be standing in front of it, it really is bright.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54He really is trying to tell us something...
0:06:56 > 0:06:59..about the power of the sun. Look at it.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01Whoo!
0:07:01 > 0:07:05Lights up the river. Whoo! Out.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08Apparently, there is some story -
0:07:08 > 0:07:13Regulus was a Roman consul that was captured by the Carthaginians.
0:07:13 > 0:07:21They took off his eyelids so that the sun burnt his eyes and blinded him.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25We, the people looking at the painting,
0:07:25 > 0:07:27stand in place of Regulus.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31We are blinded by the light.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36Sounds like a pop song, doesn't it?
0:07:39 > 0:07:41And maybe...
0:07:41 > 0:07:44Maybe Turner is actually Regulus?
0:07:44 > 0:07:46Because Turner started to have eye problems,
0:07:46 > 0:07:49in fact he started to have cataracts.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51And he loved the sun.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55It is like some people who are kind of creative get a drug.
0:07:55 > 0:07:57Sometimes it is an artificial drug.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00I can't work without doing martial arts
0:08:00 > 0:08:03or t'ai chi or some deep breathing, some deep meditation.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06I am kind of addicted to breathing.
0:08:06 > 0:08:08Well, Turner probably was addicted to the sun.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10He kept staring into the sun.
0:08:11 > 0:08:16So, maybe this is Turner kind of thinking about himself
0:08:16 > 0:08:19and thinking about his relationship with the sun.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23And what it is doing to him.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26Then looking back at the story and thinking...
0:08:26 > 0:08:29"My eyes are being burned.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33"I, too, am blinded by the light."
0:08:40 > 0:08:44There is this great story about a woman who is sitting on a train
0:08:44 > 0:08:46and a man in front of her,
0:08:46 > 0:08:48this well-behaved, well-dressed gentleman,
0:08:48 > 0:08:50for some reason jumps up,
0:08:50 > 0:08:54puts his head out of the train as it's going at speed
0:08:54 > 0:08:57for almost ten minutes and then he sits down,
0:08:57 > 0:09:01closes his eyes for 15 minutes and just sits back.
0:09:01 > 0:09:02And she thinks, "Let me have a go at it."
0:09:02 > 0:09:06She puts her head out of the window, kind of gets a bit blown away,
0:09:06 > 0:09:09and a bit wet, sits down and falls asleep.
0:09:09 > 0:09:10Couple of months later,
0:09:10 > 0:09:15she is at an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts
0:09:15 > 0:09:19and she sees this painting and then she realises that the person,
0:09:19 > 0:09:22that man who sat in front of her, was Turner.
0:09:23 > 0:09:28I wonder if...what the dancing maiden signifies?
0:09:28 > 0:09:30They pass with the boat as well.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33It is like somebody doing analogue and this is digital.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36Know what I mean? That is the past, this is the future.
0:09:36 > 0:09:41And the way he has painted it, you can feel the movement.
0:09:42 > 0:09:43It's speed.
0:09:43 > 0:09:48It's speed captured.
0:09:48 > 0:09:49Somehow.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53It's as if the train is just going to go "Whoosh!"
0:09:54 > 0:09:58This is just the moment before it goes. And look at this.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01It's a little hare.
0:10:01 > 0:10:02Or is it a rabbit?
0:10:02 > 0:10:05I can never really tell the difference.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09But it's racing down the track, as they do sometimes.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11It could be symbolic.
0:10:11 > 0:10:18A race between nature and modernity.
0:10:18 > 0:10:19Who's going to win?
0:10:21 > 0:10:24Listen, little hare. It doesn't matter if you win or lose,
0:10:24 > 0:10:28make sure you get off the track, cos that train will run you over.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40Well, this is Turner being very political.
0:10:40 > 0:10:41That's what I would call it.
0:10:41 > 0:10:43Others would call it social commentary.
0:10:43 > 0:10:44I guess it's both.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47This is based on a story, or the true happening,
0:10:47 > 0:10:53of a British ship that was taking women convicts to Australia.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56And the ship got in trouble just off the French coast,
0:10:56 > 0:11:01and the French offered help, but the captain refused the help,
0:11:01 > 0:11:05and so...allowed them to die.
0:11:05 > 0:11:09You can see the women clinging to each other,
0:11:09 > 0:11:10clinging onto their babies.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15The ship in the background going down.
0:11:15 > 0:11:20This is about saying to that captain and the powers that be
0:11:20 > 0:11:21that this should not happen.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27I could imagine at the time he was painting this he was really angry.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32There's a kind of...violence in the in the way that it's painted.
0:11:33 > 0:11:37I suspect that he probably was lashing with his brush a bit.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42I don't feel you could paint this painting sitting down and...
0:11:44 > 0:11:47..doing it gently. This has to come from emotion.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50This has to come from somewhere deep. This painting...
0:11:52 > 0:11:55..was never exhibited in his lifetime.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00But it's exhibited now.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06For those who cared about these things, who want to look back.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11Here you have a great travesty recorded.
0:12:16 > 0:12:17Forever, hopefully.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30Now, who would have guessed it?
0:12:30 > 0:12:32I mean, just look at this painting.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34There's nothing here that's really solid.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38Here, the sun is the subject,
0:12:38 > 0:12:41and although the sun is the subject, look at the sun.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45It's just a little blob down there on the left-hand side of the painting.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49It is a rather weird sun, though, I must say.
0:12:51 > 0:12:57You see, I would get the brush and make the sun perfectly round,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00cos I know that the sun is perfectly round.
0:13:00 > 0:13:01But Turner's not like that.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06It seems to me that one of things he did very beautifully
0:13:06 > 0:13:12was break the rules, was kind of make his own path in the art world.
0:13:12 > 0:13:17He was kind of the anti-artist artist if you like.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22When some of the critics saw this painting, they said he was going mad,
0:13:22 > 0:13:26he was senile, he was losing it, he was off his rocker.
0:13:26 > 0:13:27It was just...
0:13:27 > 0:13:31"Not worthy of review" or whatever.
0:13:31 > 0:13:36But there's others who thought that he'd been very futuristic.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39It was abstract before abstract.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42He was like the first Impressionist before Impressionism.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45I just can't get over that sun. It's so cute.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51I never thought I'd say that the sun is cute.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54It's lot of things, but I didn't think I'd ever say it was cute.
0:13:54 > 0:13:55But there you go.
0:14:02 > 0:14:07I've been sitting here looking at this painting for a long time.
0:14:07 > 0:14:12You see, it's called The Parting of Hero and Leander.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18Is this them having a parting kiss?
0:14:18 > 0:14:23And are these kind of angels watching them or whatever? But...
0:14:24 > 0:14:27..to be honest, that stuff doesn't really interest me
0:14:27 > 0:14:31when it comes to this painting. It's just a beautiful painting.
0:14:31 > 0:14:36In a way, it could be Turner just showing off.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40But poets do that. Not all poems are about things.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42Not all poems are about happenings.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45Not all poems are about emotions and stuff like that.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49Sometimes a poet just does word play for the sake of it.
0:14:51 > 0:14:58And here, Turner might be just painting a beautiful painting,
0:14:58 > 0:15:01which is loosely based on a story.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05But he's not necessarily trying to tell us anything.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09It doesn't really tell me anything, but it tells me that the guy
0:15:09 > 0:15:11is a damn good painter.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16He has the sun and the moon in the same sky.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20It's like what happens in Lincolnshire every now and again.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27It's just a beautiful painting. Art for art's sake, if you like.
0:15:28 > 0:15:33It's beautiful. So back off, Benjamin. Sit down...
0:15:35 > 0:15:37..and enjoy it.
0:15:43 > 0:15:49So look at this work of art. It's called Peace - Burial at Sea.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Turner painted this because one of his friends died at sea
0:15:53 > 0:15:55and was buried at sea.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00Quite a mournful picture, really, although we have fire again
0:16:00 > 0:16:01and we have more light.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06But the ship itself is...
0:16:07 > 0:16:08..the colour of mourning, black.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12In fact, somebody complained when he painted this
0:16:12 > 0:16:20and they said that the sails of the ship were too dark, too black.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23And Turner said he wished he could've made them blacker.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27One of the things I notice is...
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Here we have this burial, but there's this bird...
0:16:33 > 0:16:38..just flying low above the water.
0:16:38 > 0:16:44One has to wonder whether Turner is also thinking about his mortality.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47And there's going to be a day...
0:16:48 > 0:16:51..when the painting stops.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56But even after the painting stops...
0:16:58 > 0:16:59..the birds keep flying around.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05And the sun rises once more.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21But don't get too depressed, you know.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24Better must come.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35The thing about this painting is that it's a great time of the day
0:17:35 > 0:17:38to go out there breathe deeply.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41I play t'ai chi, and if you know anything about t'ai chi,
0:17:41 > 0:17:43we believe that in the night,
0:17:43 > 0:17:46all the chi settles in the trees and in the atmosphere,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50so if we go out at sunrise, we can breathe in the chi.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52We kind of use it for our energy.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56So we breathe in...breathe out.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00We breathe in...we breathe out.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04And we get the energy from the atmosphere.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06That's what I feel when I look at this.
0:18:06 > 0:18:11I feel like I want to play t'ai chi, I want to breathe, I want to live.
0:18:14 > 0:18:20This was later on in his life. It was actually not long before he died.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24So he probably didn't have to prove anymore that he could paint castles.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27So he just kind of leaves the castle floating in the air.
0:18:30 > 0:18:31What stands out is the sun.
0:18:33 > 0:18:38The sun shining through at the centre of the painting.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40There's this story.
0:18:40 > 0:18:45It's December, it's dreary, outside it's cloudy.
0:18:45 > 0:18:50Turner is laying in bed very, very ill.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52Suddenly, the sun shines through.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56It shines onto his face and it lights him up,
0:18:56 > 0:18:59as if to just kind of illuminate him and breathe life into him.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04But one hour later...he passed away.
0:19:06 > 0:19:11It's a bit like before somebody dies and they have a burst of life.
0:19:11 > 0:19:12Well, he had a burst of light.
0:19:14 > 0:19:15Yeah.
0:19:16 > 0:19:17Breathe.
0:19:21 > 0:19:22It's morning.
0:19:29 > 0:19:30Now, look at this.
0:19:32 > 0:19:39This is a weird, very, very weirdy Victorian thing that they used to do.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42I've seen a couple of these - death masks.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44Just after the person's died,
0:19:44 > 0:19:46somebody comes along and makes a mask of them.
0:19:48 > 0:19:53Well, I've come to the end of my journey around this exhibition,
0:19:53 > 0:19:59and I'm not sure how I feel coming face to face, as it was,
0:19:59 > 0:20:02with the creator of these great works of art.
0:20:02 > 0:20:03I know you're not really here, old man,
0:20:03 > 0:20:05I know you're somewhere else,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08but I just wanted to say thanks for the paintings
0:20:08 > 0:20:12and thanks for that stuff you did against slavery.
0:20:12 > 0:20:14You've got a good heart, my brother.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20Wherever you are, man, just keep it real. You get me?
0:20:20 > 0:20:21Safe.